Re: your conlang, please? (Rich Aunt gets hold of the Lunatic Survey)

Sally Caves wrote:
>                  11) what your conlang is called,
Formorly: Wa^nsansanu, now: Watya'iya`isa (from the adjective
tya'iya`isa, faithful)

>                  12) what are its unique features, and
It's agglutinative.  It's an ergative language in almost all aspects
EXCEPT for the clitics.  The clitics work on a nominative-absolutive
(active) system, with intransitive verbs taking nominative if they are
volitional, absolutive if non-volitional.  Also, some of the vocabulary
has unusual distinctions, e.g., la'u/kapati', which mean something like
eat/drink/take (medicine, etc.)/swallow, basically any act that involves
putting something in the mouth.  The distinction is that la'u (or la'u`
with no prefixes) refers to a social act, while kapati' refers to a
non-social act - an apparent exception is the breakfast eaten after the
Fast Of Womanhood/Manhood (or whatever it's name will be), part of the
rite of passage.  One breaks the fast alone, but la'u is used because
the eating is part of the rite, which has a social value.

My proudest feature, tho, is multiple case-marking.  If a noun is
subordinate to another noun, it must carry the appropriate case for it's
relationship (e.g., genetive, locative, etc.), AND agree with its head,
thus:

He killed the man's dog
Qalyawi'ntasnaka                 nakyu^manqyu     kida^gayu
Past-kill-3rd.Rat.Abs.-G2.S.Nom. G2-human-gen-abs G4-dog-abs
Where G2 and G4 mean Gender 2 (masculine rational) and G4 (higher
animal)

This allows clauses to be jumbled up in almost any conceivable order,
thus:
Kida^gayu qalyawi'ntasnaka nakyu^manqyu (the-dog he-killed the-man's)
Nakyu^manqyu qalyawi'ntasnaka kida^gayu (the-man's he-killed the-dog)
and so on.

It also allows for nice disambiguation:

John told Bill that his dog died
NaTya^n qasaga^tas naBilaz  pli  qayawi'nna kida^ga nyii'qunq(yu/az)
John    past-tell  Bill-dat this past-die   dog     he-gen-abs/dat

Where the -yu (abs.) would mean that "he" refers back to the absolutive
(John), while -az (dat.) would mean that "he" refers back to the dative
(Bill).

The bad thing about W. is that it tends to be very long.  Oh, well.

Also, I plan to create a *family* of languages eventually.

>                  13) whether you have a website.
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Conlang/W.html

>         What would happen if someone got hold of your conlang and
>         vast numbers began using it and speaking it and changing it?
>         Remember the "No Rich Aunt" scenario?  What if she made you
>         a village?
I think I'd turn into a prescriptivist.  "No, you can't use the
absolutive clitic there!  You must use the illative!  You must use the
-yu form of the absolutive there!" and so on.  ;-)  On the other hand,
it might be interesting to see how it might evolve naturally ...

--
"A silent mouth is sweet to hear" - Irish proverb
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